NO JOKING MATTER: Spoof on D.A.R.E. draws ire from cops, prosecution by D.A.

By Howard Blume, LA Weekly, November 17 1995

Marijuana enthusiast Mark Hornaday thought the T-shirt made
a good point in an amusing, harmless way. The top line bears
the stamp "D.A.R.E." -- the logo for a police-supported anti-drug
organization. Underneath, the shirt reads, "I turned in my
parents and all I got was this lousy T-shirt."

The Claremont police and D.A.R.E. America are not laughing. Nor,
in fact, is Hornaday, because he now faces a maximum penalty of four
years in prison and a $20,000 fine for selling the shirt at Hemp
Shak, a Claremont store that sells legal products made from hemp,
the "other" name for plants belonging to the marijuana family.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office has charged Hornaday,
24, with trademark counterfeiting, specificially the unauthorized
use of the D.A.R.E. logo, which properly stands for "drug-abuse
resistance education." Pretrial motions in the case are set for
December 8 in Pomona.

Hornaday and his attorney call the charges ridiculous. They insist the
T-shirts are an obvious parody and are protected under the Constitution's
free-speech provisions. Real trademark infingement has to do with
people selling fake Rolex watches, says William G. Panzer, Hornaday's
Oakland-based attorney. Panzer cites a list of supporting case law: an
unsuccessful suit by the Girl Scouts against the makers of a poster
featuring a pregnant Girl Scout; Disney's failed litigation against a
comic-book parody featuring Mickey and Minnie having sex and doing
drugs.

Moreover, past cases were civil lawsuits, not criminal prosecutions,
where a jail sentence could result. Panzer says he can find no
precedent for such a criminal prosecution, and he challenges using
taxpayer's resources to fight the battles of D.A.R.E., a private
organization.

As for D.A.R.E., its attorney cannot recall initiating any litigation
over parody products. General counsel Barbara Johnson says that
cease-and-desist letters alone halt sales of unauthorized products nearly
all the time. Past parodies have included the sale of a T-shirt
proclaiming, "D.A.R.E. to keep cops off doughnuts." Says Johnson,
we take the program quite seriously and don't feel it should be made
an object of ridicule for someone else's profit."

Hornaday says no one is going to confuse his T-shirt with a real D.A.R.E.
product, particularly if it's for sale in a store that specializes in
products made from hemp.

Not so, says Dennis B. Smith, a police officer in Claremont, a sleepy
college town due east of Los Angeles. Smith, like hundreds of police
officers nationwide, received training from D.A.R.E and spends much of
his time teaching local 10-year-olds about the evils of drug use and
gangs. He says at least six students have seen the store or the shirt
and asked questions like: Is D.A.R.E. for marijuana? Does D.A.R.E. want
you to turn in your parents? "He wants to have marijuana legalized," notes
Officer Smit. "There were petitions in the store. There are children
going in there and seeing this, which is counterproductive to the
D.A.R.E. program."

Hornaday, a onetime anthropology student who says he has completed most
of his degree work at nearby Pomona College, opened his tiny Foothill
Boulevard store in February, next to Barbara's Answering Service and
across from the local Methodist church. In March, Smith and a D.A.R.E.
representative confronted Hornaday at his store. An intimidated Hornaday
turned over two shirts, which he acquired from a distributor, and agreed
not to sell any more. After thinking it over, he changed his mind: "Most
people who've heard about this T-shirt find it very funny, and they know
it's a parody."

This summer, Smith and three other officers arrived at the Hemp Shak with
a search warrent and two D.A.R.E. representatives. An hour's search yielded
a handful of T-shirts, which led to the filing of charges in July. The
authentic T-shirts, which say "D.A.R.E. to keep kids off drugs." are
the biggest-selling item for D.A.R.E. America, a California nonprofit
that raises funds to support its anti-drug, anti-gang education programs.

Ever practical, Hornaday hopes to turn the whole morass into a research
paper so he can earn that long-delayed anthropology degree. And he says
potential customers, while awaiting the court's decision, may wish to
consider other products -- like an anti-drug-testing T-shirt that fairly
sums up Hornaday's situation. It reads, "Urine Trouble Now."